My mucus plug came out at about 5pm and I had already decided ahead of time that I would wait until my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart and coming regularly before going to the hospital. So I didn’t alert the grandparents yet or call Stefan at work. I figured they would just get nervous and that wasn’t going to help anyone. I also was a bit skeptical about what had happened since it was just a small amount of fluid at first. But once I noticed the pink tinge to it, I knew we were in business.

When Stefan got home at 6:30, I told him that things were getting started…and he said he already knew that something had changed when he walked in the door. One of the first things he said when he came in was that he noticed she had dropped. Could have fooled me.

I went to lay down for a bit and listen to some additional scripts. I fell asleep for a bit – or into a really deep hypnotic state close to sleep – and came down later for dinner at about 7:30. Since I had no clue when I might actually leave for the hospital, I figured eating would be a wise idea. If I was going to have any chance of sleeping, I was going to take it…and there would be no going to bed hungry. After dinner, I laid on the couch and watched some TV with Stefan. I was timing my pressure waves (contractions) for about 20 minutes every hour and finally at about 11:20 I decided we should head out. The waves were coming every 5-6 minutes and steadily increasing as the time passed. With the hospital being about 30 minutes away, I didn’t want to press my luck too much. As it turned out, it took us about 40 minutes to get there anyway since the streets were so icy.

The parking lot at St. Vinzenz hospital in Hanau was like a skating rink. I had to wonder if we were doing each other any favors by holding on to one another while walking to the front door. When we told the security guard on duty that it was pretty treacherous out there, he hardly seemed phased. Guess safety wasn’t really his top priority.

We were the only people in the birthing wing of the hospital which was a bit surreal. But I guess that is typical at midnight. It was just the midwife, Stefan and me with full run of the place. Rather nice, actually. The midwife hooked me up to a CTG machine to see if my estimate of the timing of the waves was correct…and just how strong they were. After monitoring me about 30 minutes, she decided it was time to call the doctor so they could see how well I’d progressed so far.

The doctor took a few sonogram photos to determine how Mack was sitting, head size and whatever else they generally check. She also checked me out and noted that I was 2-3 cm dilated. Since it could still be a while, they suggested I go try to get some sleep downstairs in the mommy recovery ward. It was about 1:30am.

Stefan took the opportunity to bring my bags inside to put in the room since we’d only come inside with ourselves. We settled in for the night and I was listening to the Deepening script on my iPod, hoping that I could make use of the comfy bed in the hospital oom. Every time I started to drift off, it seemed Mackenzie was keeping track because a new pressure wave would start. And just as Stefan found a way to sleep in the chairs they had in the hospital room, I decided I wanted to go back upstairs to the birthing area. I couldn’t foresee any sleep taking place during the night and the waves seemed to be getting more intense. I’d been fighting for sleep for about an hour.

At this stage, I started to lose a bit of faith in the Hypnobabies program. I guess I had some delusions about just how painful things might get…but I was pretty happy that things weren’t getting too much more forceful than I’d already experienced since I was really having trouble focusing. Thankfully, Stefan was a rock and he just kept reminding me to keep listening to my scripts and to breathe deeply but too quickly since I was overloading my body with oxygen and causing my arms to tingle. He was a perfect birthing partner. I have no idea how anyone could do this alone – I would be a complete wreck! In fact, we just watched an episode from the first season of Private Practice where a woman’s husband died right before the baby was born. She just totally started to crumble. But had I been watching that show before Mackenzie arrived, I probably would have been a bit more freaked out about natural childbirth. Hence they recommend you don’t watch anything that might leave a negative impression of birth in your mind. And you make a list of fears that you “erase” with the hypnotherapy before the baby arrives.

Back at the birthing room, I was hooked up to a CTG machine again and they monitored Mack’s heart rate and strength of the pressure waves. The machine was reading well over 100 for the waves and I had to wonder just how much more intense things were going to get. If the numbers just kept climbing, I wasn’t sure how I would cope. No one every mentions just how wild things are going to get…guess they’re trying not to scare anyone. And of course everyone has a slightly different pain threshold. Previously I’d had waves up to 60 and barely even felt them…now the waves at 130 were not to be missed.

The midwife, who was really having doubts about the hypnotherapy at this time, brought in a birthing ball for me to sit in which was where I found myself most comfortable. Stefan could put pressure on my lower back when the waves started off and I could lean against him from time to time when I needed to change position a bit. I also tried a bit of chamomile tea but that wasn’t really working for me. Perhaps that is what helped trigger me to bring dinner back up for a visit in the sink of the room…the bathroom was just too far and there were no useful trash containers in sight.

Since my body wanted to push already so we called in the midwife who seemed to be in charge of the birthing, even though a doctor was present. I’d been having hot and cold flashes for a little while and when I first got to the room, I was shivering because I was so cold. But once they put me up in the bed and I started pushing, I was sweating like it was a sauna. The midwife had me start pushing while laying on my side as she held open my cervix. I was not 100% dilated yet but my body didn’t seem to care. And I definitely had something new to focus on besides the pressure waves. Actually, I don’t remember any pain once they switched to pushing waves…but there was a whole new challenge to focus on so I wasn’t necessarily paying attention.

A few times I tried pushing when I wasn’t having a pressure wave, in hopes that I could control the speed at which Mack was coming out. This is something they recommend in the Hypnobabies workbook but the midwife wanted to scold me for it since she said I was making myself too tired by doing that. She also recommended that I put the hypnotherapy back on about half-way into things because I just couldn’t focus and pushing a baby out is really not all that simple. Even when you think you’re pushing at the right place, you often aren’t. Incredibly, after the script was playing, things just cruised along again. The midwife pulled and nudged things around down below which wasn’t comfortable…but I was absolutely ready to have Mack out so I was happy for any help I could get. At 8:32am on November 25th, Mackenzie Skye was born (7 pounds 4.75 ounces (3310 grams) and 20.47 inches (52 centimeters.)

The new Mack - only 5 minutes old

Here’s a photo that they took at the hospital about 1 hour after I’d given birth (which seemed like it was only about 30 minutes later). As you can see I was happy, alert and feeling rather good. I absolutely recommend trying the Hypnobabies method for anyone interested and I’m happy to answer questions if I can.